En Mémoire
by NuclearNik
Summary: Hermione navigates the rough waters of grief after the loss of a friend.


**A/N: Minor character death and implied/referenced suicide. It is offscreen and not described.**

* * *

**GONE**

no longer present; departed.

* * *

_Gone_.

A word that meant something had disappeared, not to be seen for ages or perhaps even never again.

Lost. Stolen. Over.

In the right context, though, it could hold positive connotations.

For example, Voldemort was gone.

The pain and fear that had haunted Hermione's childhood were gone.

The war was gone.

Those were good things. Celebratory things.

It was hard to fathom that a word that felt so heavy, so burdensome she could scarcely lift it at times, could be simultaneously joyous and horrid.

When Hermione's world crumbled down around her, when all the things she'd thought to be true—counted on to be true—had been flipped and twisted around, impossible to rationalize with logic, it was a Thursday, early in the evening.

Hermione had been at the library with Neville and Ginny working on a group project that was due at the end of the month.

Someone came in, a new professor she couldn't recall the name of. Their hurried walk through the aisles heralded their approach, and they were nearly out of breath by the time they reached the three students sat at a little round table.

_Gone_.

The teacher pulled Hermione aside, away from the others.

"There's been a death. Miss Lovegood was found in the Room of Requirement. She—she took her own life."

Later, Hermione would learn that McGonagall had intended to deliver the news herself. She'd sent the new teacher to bring the three of them to her office.

Something got crossed in the communication of those intentions, and the words were blurted out with no warning, no preparation.

Hermione didn't cry. She couldn't. She walked back to Ginny and Neville and said a simple sentence as if she were recounting something about the weather.

"Luna killed herself."

Ginny started crying immediately. Seeing such a strong witch, someone who'd barely gotten through the devastation of losing a brother, reduced to tears and forced to mourn once more broke Hermione's heart. Neville sat there looking shell-shocked, moving with jerky motions to wrap an arm around Ginny.

Hermione just stood there for a minute, watching them. She felt like a puppet someone had been making dance, only to cut the strings and send her falling in a heap to the floor.

She tried to cry—even managed a few tears—because it felt like she should, because everyone else was and something must be horribly wrong with her if she wasn't.

More people came in the library, speaking in hushed tones to Ginny and Neville.

In the midst of it all, Hermione suddenly felt as if she couldn't stay standing there in the library, in a place that typically brought her comfort, one more minute. Not one second more.

In a daze, she ran to the seventh floor only to be stopped by an Auror preventing her from going any further.

It was an active crime scene. They were investigating. She could barely wrap her mind around it.

_Gone._

She waited in the hall outside the barriers that had been erected, sitting with her knees to her chest, staring at the opposite wall without really seeing anything.

When she'd first walked up, she caught a glimpse into the room. One of Luna's radish earrings lay abandoned on the floor. That moment was seared into her mind, flashing over and over again as she sat alone on the floor. It was an image that she'd never forget.

It could have been hours or simply a few minutes, but at some point Mr. Lovegood was there, grief all over his face. It hurt to look at him.

Shortly after his arrival, the authorities confirmed what had been suspected after ruling out foul play.

Luna took her own life.

The next day, the first snow of the season dusted the landscape, making the grounds look fresh and pretty. Such a contrast to so many of the students within.

Hermione had been up all night. Her eyes were swollen and her voice croaky.

But still, she chose to go to class.

Some classes were cancelled, and the older students were excused from any that weren't. McGonagall had wanted them to have space to feel, to mourn.

At the same time, shutting down the entire school may have not been warranted, so instead she let the younger students—the ones mostly untouched by this tragedy—continue as normal.

Hermione couldn't explain why it had felt absolutely necessary for her to attend, just that it _had_.

Perhaps it was the part of her brain that refused to accept the truth, the part that hoped if she just went to class and carried on with her day, maybe everything would right itself.

Maybe it was all just a bad dream, a night terror trying to trick her.

Classes passed in a blur.

At lunch, she wasn't hungry. In fact, she felt as though she may never be hungry again. She tried, though. She tried to go on as if everything would be okay, but it wouldn't, never again. And she couldn't pretend.

She felt like a husk, a shell of herself incapable of feeling anything but utter, ringing emptiness.

The heavy oak doors that opened into the Great Hall were as far as she got. Crossing the threshold felt impossible, so instead, she walked down the hall, turning into another corridor that split off from the main Entrance Hall.

She was directionless, feet taking her in no specific path, just onward.

When she came to a dead-end, it felt fitting. After all, that's what Luna had encountered, wasn't it? An unscalable wall. An immovable obstacle she didn't believe she could overcome.

The sound of a shoe scuffing against the stone floor caught Hermione's attention, and she turned, taking a few paces back to a little alcove tucked away in the wall, something she hadn't even noticed when she'd walked down here.

Hidden away in that alcove, on the floor with her back against the wall, was Ginny.

"Gin?" she whispered, afraid of startling her friend.

Ginny lifted her face, and her eyes shone out of the darkness.

Dry.

Her eyes were dry now, just like Hermione's, but only for a moment, for a brief reprieve. The tears would be back. She knew they would.

Ginny wordlessly patted the space beside her, and Hermione slid in next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

They sat there for a while in silence.

At one point, Ginny lifted something to her mouth. Its shiny silver surface reflected light from the dim torches adorning the walls.

A flask.

Holding the small container out in Hermione's direction, Ginny said, "I had to—I couldn't keep going today without this."

Hermione, who was a stickler for rules—at least when it suited her—took the offered flask without a second thought and tipped it to her lips.

The liquor burned a scalding path down her throat, and it was the first time since last night that she'd felt anything other than numb.

The idea of returning to class and facing people who were blessedly unaffected by this pain she was feeling and going about their days was too much to bear.

Instead, Hermione sat there with Ginny for an hour, maybe two. Maybe more. Time had become a fuzzy convention, blurred.

No words were exchanged between them, just silent solace and the mindless relief of alcohol.

* * *

**TRIAL**

a test of faith, patience, or stamina through subjection to suffering or temptation

* * *

Hermione had known pain. They all had.

The devastation of the Second Wizarding War had been broad, reaching far and wide.

No one was left untouched.

When the fighting was over, when they buried their dead and mourned, the loss of so much life had been felt by all.

She'd been through a war when she was just a teenager, still a child in so many ways. Grief had been her companion. She knew its icy touch when it came for her in the night.

But this, this was different.

Senseless.

Unexpected.

Unprepared for.

Impossible to grasp.

It felt like an unconquerable test, an exam that she'd miserably failed.

Hermione's final year of schooling—a year that by all rights should have been a time of rebuilding and celebration—had been soured, all the colour sucked out of it.

And it wasn't just her; seeing her friends in pain was excruciating.

Neville, who had just come into his own, just grown confident in himself, had been smashed to pieces. He was gone for a while—home with his gran. And when he returned, it was like all the colour had been sucked out of him too.

Like he'd been touched by a Dementor's kiss.

For weeks, months even, it was all about putting one foot in front of the other for Hermione.

When she tried to reason out why such a horrible thing had happened, she couldn't.

_Gone._

It didn't make sense. Luna was a bright beam of light, wise beyond her years and steady as a rock.

Had the strain of the events of the war been too much for her? Had the taunts and jeers she received from other students simply because she was different impacted her so strongly that she'd rather be out of this world than in it?

There was no answer.

But that didn't stop Hermione from searching, desperate to know, to understand _why._

* * *

**HEAL**

to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment

* * *

Slowly, the delicate little pieces of Hermione that had shattered into oblivion started to mend.

It was a painful process, like tugging a shard of glass out of her skin each day that passed.

It didn't mean it was over.

She'd gotten through it, not over it. The difference was definite.

And when she graduated, when she received her certificate declaring her a student no more, it didn't matter how many people were proud of her.

It didn't matter what she'd accomplished academically.

It didn't matter if professor after professor stopped her at the leaving ceremony, congratulating her and reminding her of her achievements.

None of it mattered because Luna was not there. Luna hadn't been given the chance to graduate, to celebrate this milestone.

It had been stolen from her by some cruel twist of fate, by an insidious voice whispering lies into her ear.

_Gone._

Dark and light was simple.

Fighting off the bad guys had made sense.

But this... This had no perpetrator, no enemy Hermione could seek vengeance on. There was nowhere to direct her anger and naked pain.

Because _Luna _had snuffed her own light out, unable to bear the weight of existing any longer.

So instead, conflicting feelings churned inside Hermione, her emotions so confusing it felt like she'd never find a way through the maze her heart had become.

She could only hope that Luna was somewhere without pain, that she was smiling and happy and whole.

Hermione could only hope, desperate and longing, that _she _would someday be there too, smiling and happy and whole.

Because right now—as every step felt like a mile and each of her feet felt as though they weighed a thousand tons—that seemed impossible.

_Gone. _

* * *

This fic is largely a reflection of my own experience but told through Hermione's eyes. It was incredibly cathartic to write, and I can only hope it resonates with someone else. My Luna was a white-blonde ball of sunshine who I dearly miss ❤️

Thank you to ravenslight for her kind soul and beta skills.


End file.
